The service bell rang. Lucrezia looked up at the wooden box on the wall in which there were rows of painted numbers. Under each number was a hole and when someone rang the bell in his room for service, a little red metal tag would drop down into the hole under the number of the room where the person had pressed the servizio buzzer.

I saw it was Number Seventeen. That was my parents’ room. They were ordering breakfast. Lucrezia reached up to the servizio number box, pulled a handle on the side that made the red tag for Room Seventeen go back up. Then Lucrezia sighed and reached into the cupboard to get out the things she needed to set up their breakfast tray.

The first morning you were at the Pensione Biea Lucrezia would take note of what you had for breakfast. After that, when you came in and sat down or if you pushed the servizio button, she automatically brought you what you had ordered the first day. It could be coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. You could also ask for a glass of milk, and unless you told her not to, she would serve it to you warm so a skin would be on it, and you could really taste how different Italian milk was from Swiss milk.

Lucrezia put two plates, two huge silver-plated knives with “Hotel Splendido” stamped on them (even though this was the Pensione Biea), two cups, saucers, the little pots of Yugoslavian apricot jam, sugar cubes, individually wrapped in white paper with a picture of Pope John XXIII on them, and last the coffee and hot milk for Dad and the tea with lemon for Mom.

When Lucrezia was ready I decided to follow her to Mom and Dad’s bedroom so I could ask them what I could do that day since it was raining.

When we got to their room, it was pitch dark. Dad always closed the shutters and pulled the curtains because he liked a really dark room to sleep in. If we ever stayed anywhere that did not have heavy curtains or shutters, Mom would look around the room and say, “I’m afraid Ralph will not sleep very well. He’ll wake up early and be in a terrible mood.” We would all work hard to prevent this by doing whatever we could to help Mom find a way to get the room properly dark. If we could, we’d hang blankets up or even bath towels. Once we stood a whole couch on one end and pushed it against the window to help Mom get the room dark enough to keep Dad in a good mood.